


it's a kind of magic

by sapphicbecca



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: M/M, Pining, Tenderness, Yearning, and aziraphale still can't stop looking at crowley, and they talk a bit about what they've been doing since that argument in 1862, aziraphale rides a car for the first time and can't stop looking at crowley, just picture it soft and ache okay!, post-1941 church scene, then they get drunk in the bookshop as usual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-21
Updated: 2019-08-21
Packaged: 2020-09-23 00:27:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20331022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapphicbecca/pseuds/sapphicbecca
Summary: Aziraphale stood a moment longer in the church rubble, and then turned to follow Crowley.





	it's a kind of magic

_one golden glance of what should be_

Aziraphale slid into the Bentley, clutching the bag of books to his chest. He wasn't sure if he was supposed to have a heart, but he could feel it pounding all the same. Despite every crazed thought racing through his head, he took a moment to look around at the car he'd just climbed into. Sleek, black, uncluttered, and trying very hard to be cool. If Aziraphale concentrated, he could feel a slight unearthly buzzing coming from the car, and he wondered what Crowley had done to it. 

Crowley. Who'd waltzed into the church, willfully scorching his feet on the consecrated tiles, all to hand Aziraphale a rescue from an inconvenient discorporation. Crowley, who, despite everything, was still thinking about Aziraphale a hundred years after the angel had denied his request. Crowley, who'd hopped into the car seat next to him and was fumbling with the keys. Crowley, who was suddenly really very close. 

Aziraphale had not been in many cars before. Or any, really. They'd been puttering around London the last three decades or so, he supposed, but he truly hadn't had any need or opportunity to actually take a ride in one, what with being used to the convenience of miracles and not leaving his bookshop unless he needed to, until the war had started, anyway. What the angel hadn't realized was how...intimate they were. Sure, there was room enough for the entire bag of books in between the leather seats, but on a whole, it'd been quite some time since he had been this close to Crowley. Close enough to feel his body heat simmer against the cold winter night as he slammed his door shut. Close enough to still notice the faint but lingering scent of something beginning to burn. Close enough to see the goosebumps popping up on the back of his neck as he leaned down to properly jam in the keys. 

Aziraphale then promptly turned his head and looked out the window, face flushed, back at the burning wreckage of the church. He supposed he ought to feel mournful that such a beautiful church, that a temple for the Almighty, was so swiftly struck down and destroyed, but all he felt, surveying the flames in the rubble, was relief. He was relieved that the books were saved, that the half-witted Nazis were dead and gone, and that maybe, just maybe, he and Crowley were still friends. 

Crowley started the ignition, and Aziraphale marveled at how alive the car felt, roaring to life underneath him. Crowley peered out the window, then placed his hand on the back of Aziraphale's seat, and half-hoisted himself out of his seat to check behind them as he pulled out of the somehow completely unharmed parking lot. Any thoughts Aziraphale had had about how close they were sitting before flew out the window. He did his best to not look at Crowley, who really was terrifyingly near to him, and to very carefully stare straight ahead until Crowley sat back down, and slowly turned the car towards the road. 

"Still living at the bookshop, then?" Crowley asked, breaking the silence in a tone of voice that told Aziraphale he already knew the response. 

"Yes," Aziraphale answered anyway, holding the bag of books a little closer to his chest. Crowley nodded wearily, and took a turn onto a darker backroad. Aziraphale took advantage of the shadows to carefully look over at Crowley’s profile, which was focused on the road ahead. He started to forget the past century, to allow the details of Crowley's face that he'd forgotten, whether on purpose or by accident, to seep back into his memory, and began to let any animosity he'd been feeling since 1862 slowly slip away. 

"What?" Crowley said, turning and meeting Aziraphale's gaze, which was not as subtle as he would have liked. Aziraphale wished, not for the first time, that he could see through Crowley's dark shades. 

"Nothing," Aziraphale said, a little too quickly. "Just wondering what you've been up to since the last time I saw you." He looked away then, back at his bag of books and out the window once more, watching the dark silhouettes of trees in the night race by. 

"Oh. Uh, sleeping, mostly," Crowley mumbled, scratching the back of his head. Aziraphale turned back to him. 

"This entire time?" Aziraphale thought about everything he'd done since 1862, and how often he was surprised he hadn't run into Crowley, considering some of the areas he'd dipped his toes into. 

"Ngh. More or less, I suppose. Got up once a decade or two back to use the restroom. Then, I woke up a few weeks ago, and ended up hearing about your very smart and _ completely _fool-proof plan to trick some Nazis. And here we are." Crowley shrugged. "So, if you're wondering, neither of these wars were me." 

"Well, I know that now," Aziraphale muttered. Crowley gave him a side glance, one that clearly said,_ do you? _ Aziraphale didn't dignify it with a response, choosing instead to crack open the bag and fuss over the books, which were all completely fine. Not one book had a tear or a speck of dust tainting their ancient covers. In fact, Aziraphale noticed, some of them were in even better condition than they'd been in before he brought them to the church. He raised an eyebrow at Crowley. 

"Exactly how well _ did _ you protect these books, my dear?" he asked. Crowley twitched slightly and tried to cough it off. 

"Don't know what you're talking about," he replied breezily. Aziraphale searched his face. Before he had the chance to reply, Crowley pulled off the dark path they'd been taking, and onto a main road, illuminated with streetlights and a sparse amount of other nighttime drivers. Crowley's eyes focused up ahead, and, seeing the empty road stretched out ahead of them, pressed his foot down on the accelerator. 

Aziraphale was thrown against his seat, frantically holding on to his bag as though it contained a fragile newborn baby, not a few ancient manuscripts. He hadn't gone this fast since he'd been flying in Heaven. He whipped his head over to glare at the driver, who was currently grinning slyly. 

"Crowley!"

"...Yeah?" Crowley asked, nonchalantly. 

"Don't you think,” Aziraphale started, teeth clenched, “you’re going a tad too fast?" He chanced a look over. Crowley's grin had faded a bit. 

"Ah, we're almost there, angel, and I'm not gonna hit anyone - I promise." With that, Crowley gave Aziraphale another smile, less mischievous, and more earnest. Despite his panic at the accelerated car speeds, Aziraphale felt something melt a little inside himself, looking at that smile. He nodded curtly, gripped his car seat, and watched as the neighborhoods of Soho zoomed into view. Within minutes, far quicker than he could have ever imagined, Crowley pulled up perfectly outside his bookshop. Aziraphale realized with a tiny shock that Crowley hadn’t needed to ask for directions. He still remembered exactly where it was, after all these years. His fingers slowly curled around the handle of the bag, and he moved to unbuckle his seatbelt. 

"Well. I suppose I should thank you," he started, waiting for the usual protest. Instead, Crowley just nodded listlessly, gripping the steering wheel and looking out the windshield. Aziraphale, slightly disoriented and overwhelmed, began to open the car door. He stepped out on the sidewalk and suddenly felt a pit twisting in his stomach, because having been so near to Crowley for even such a short amount of time, he was now unbearably far from him. 

"Come in for a drink, won't you?" The words fell out of Aziraphale before he could stop them. Crowley looked up at him, eyebrows raised in surprise. 

"Okay," he said, and got out of the car. 

Now it was Aziraphale’s turn to fumble with the keys while he attempted to let the two of them back into his shop. Probably he could have miracled it open, but the world had seen enough miracles that evening, and there was no point in drawing more attention to himself than needed. He eventually got the key to fit correctly, and led Crowley into the dark shop. While Aziraphale bustled around, fetching candles and putting the poor books back in all the right places, Crowley simply stood in the middle of the shop, hands in his pockets, still wearing his sunglasses and his hat, just _ looking _. He didn’t say anything, just seemed to be taking it all in, looking for any sense of change from the last few decades, which, Aziraphale thought, there was little to find. Once he’d finished sorting the books and dimly illuminating the shop with mixed candles, Aziraphale took the brightest one he could find and walked into the back room. Crowley followed quickly, still quietly observing everything and not saying a word. Aziraphale set the candle down on his desk and set about lighting a few more for good measure. Crowley took a few measured steps into the room, face still deliberately neutral, looking at the various paintings and pressed letters and certificates and other decorations Aziraphale had stuck up on his wall. 

“You can sit down, you know,” Aziraphale said quickly when Crowley strayed a little too close to a framed letter from a certain English poet, gesturing to the couch on the other side of the room. Crowley glanced over at him, still carefully masking his surprise. He walked over to the couch and plopped down, patiently waiting while Aziraphale went digging in his wine cabinet. He emerged a moment later, triumphantly clutching a dusty bottle and two less dusty wine glasses. He leaned over to give Crowley a glass, and their fingers brushed ever so slightly. Aziraphale turned quickly from the brief contact, face flushed, to open up the wine bottle and try not to think of a similar moment than an hour ago. 

_ “Lift home?” Crowley let go of the bag just before the brief contact became prolonged, and walked past Aziraphale, who, for a moment, simply stood, church burning around him. He looked at Crowley, surrounded by rubble and earthly flames. He held the books a little closer to his chest as the revelation silently crashed over him, as he finally began to understand it all. Aziraphale stood a moment longer in the demolished temple, then he turned to follow Crowley. _

It wasn’t that he hadn’t known how he felt before, Aziraphale thought to himself, filling up his wine glass, but that there was something in the way Crowley came to the church, with no motives other than to help Aziraphale, despite the disastrous end of their last meeting, that caused Aziraphale to ache inside whenever he even tried to wrap his mind around it. Something about the whole situation gave him an overwhelming sense of urgency, something he wasn’t sure if he’d be quite able to catch up to. There was also the look Crowley had when he gazed over at the holy water, simply sitting out in the open, but that thought hurt too much for Aziraphale to really think about it for at least another decade. Maybe two. 

He turned and filled up Crowley’s glass, then settled back into his own desk chair, resisting the urge to move it closer to the couch when Crowley was now a bit more sprawled out. He’d taken his hat off, and his limbs were stretched out and relaxed. Aziraphale watched him take a cautious sip of wine. 

“So,” Crowley said, hesitancy creeping in his voice, “bookshop hasn’t changed much.” 

Aziraphale made a small hum in agreement. “I suppose it hasn’t. I’ve just collected a few more books.” 

“A few?” Crowley asked, skeptical. Aziraphale chuckled. 

“More than a few. Just about eighty or so years of some of England’s finer literature.” 

"I wouldn't expect anything less," Crowley said, and took a sip of wine. Aziraphale watched him from across the room, now that they were in better lighting, and he could actually _ see _ him - a mess of arms and legs slowly becoming more comfortable, more spread out, taking up more and more of the couch. Clothed completely in black, as always, rust-red hair chopped short to the decade's liking, sooty remains of the church lingering on his cheek. A carefree expression beginning to blossom on his face. Despite all that, Aziraphale could still see the tension quivering in his body, the last dredging remains of their final argument, remarks exchanged that even a fairy-tale church rescue scene couldn't quite shake off. 

_ "I don't need you." _

_ "The feeling is mutual. Obviously." _

_ "Obviously." _

Aziraphale winced slightly as the memories forced their way in, conversations he’d avoided thinking about for decades. He'd learned quickly that mulling over every alternative thing he could have said led nowhere, especially when the demon in question was nowhere to be found. Even so, as the image of Crowley angrily turning away from him in the park wavered in his mind, he found it incredibly difficult to pair that Crowley to the one lounging in front of him, drinking Aziraphale's wine and making himself cozy on Aziraphale's couch. 

"So," Crowley started, and Aziraphale quickly looked up at him, "What have _ you _ been up to since - you know. Since last time?" He tilted his head up hopefully at Aziraphale. 

What _ had _ Aziraphale been up to in the last eighty years? He tried to remember exactly what was before and after the disastrous St. James Park Argument. Well, there had been some certain... _ notable _ writers he'd spent some interesting times with. There was the gavotte, and all the other lovely young men in the gentlemen's club. There was also the first Great War, just a couple of decades back. He'd spent most of that war miracling bombs away from his bookshop, and praying, mostly. The whole city, the whole country, had likely been praying as well, but Aziraphale hoped that perhaps an angel's prayers would count for a bit more, in the overall scheme of things. By the time the second war had begun, Aziraphale had learned better, and had every intention of helping out with the war efforts this time around. Those intentions had, of course, led to the church, and the Nazis, and to Crowley. 

"Not much," Aziraphale said, with a little shake of his head. 

"Eighty years, the height of the industrial revolution, two worldwide wars, but you haven't done much?" Crowley raised an eyebrow, and he shifted, sitting up a little more. Aziraphale squirmed in his seat. 

"Well, I did do more than just sleep," he replied, sniffing haughtily. Crowley rolled his eyes, so dramatically Aziraphale couldn't mistake the action for anything else, even with the dark shades still on.

"Okay, angel," Crowley said, tipping back the last drops of his wine. Aziraphale snapped his fingers and Crowley's glass refilled. The demon shot him a look. For a few moments, they sat back in the silence, drinking. Crowley drummed his fingers restlessly on the arm of the couch, and Aziraphale kept shifting slightly in his chair. After another few near unendurable seconds, he looked up at Crowley. 

"I learned how to dance," he said. Crowley's head whipped up from where it had been despondently staring into his glass. 

"You _ what _?" he asked, incredulous. Aziraphale was reminded, helplessly, of a sword and a garden wall and Earth's first rain. 

"I joined a gentlemen's club, just before the turn of the century, and they taught me how to dance." Aziraphale couldn't help but smile. 

"You didn't." 

"I did!" 

"But angels don't dance!" Crowley gestured at the only angel present in the room. 

"Well," Aziraphale said, with a glimmer in his eye, "this one does. Specifically, the gavotte." 

"Of course," Crowley groaned, "of course, you'd learn to dance and it'd be the one that went out of fashion as quickly as it had come into it."

“It’s not out of fashion!” Aziraphale protested, sputtering weakly. 

“Angel, _angel_, you’ve got to keep up,” Crowley said, gesturing wildly once more, “Humans are changing quicker and quicker. Everything is accelerating. Dances don’t stick around for whole centuries anymore. They come and go within lifespans. It’s like, my car out there, only twenty years old! And she’s not considered a modern vehicle anymore, not as far as some people are concerned. Times change quick, now.” 

“I suppose you’re right,” Aziraphale said glumly. He had been noticing that clothing trends were changing faster than he could track, and that the music he’d picked up on his already antique radio was far different than what he’d grown accustomed to the last few centuries. Not to mention the entire leaps and bounds the humans had been making in technology, the cars taking over the streets and the moving pictures and the telecommunication devices. He knew most of it was coming, of course, divine plan and all, but none of that prepared him for how quick humanity would be willing to completely change their society every new decade. 

“Plus,” Crowley added, “when was the last time you even went to that gentlemen’s club?” His voice danced on the last few words, and Aziraphale couldn’t say he didn’t like the way it sounded. 

“Oh,” Aziraphale said, “um, I suppose it’s been a while, hasn’t it?” 

“Most of those clubs have been long shut down,” Crowley said. It didn’t escape Aziraphale’s notice that he sounded almost apologetic. His heart (which, again, he was not completely sure he needed to have) pounded hopelessly at the thought. 

“How do you know so much, anyway?” Aziraphale asked, completely aware he was deflecting, “Haven’t you been asleep all these years?” 

Crowley almost looked offended. “Well, yeah, but I’ve been awake a good, I don’t know, month or so, and I can read - uh, I mean, I was able to figure out a lot from the angry messages Hell left lying at my door.” He slid down a little, sinking deeper into the couch cushions. Aziraphale gave him a look. 

“What books did you read?” He asked, threading innocence into his voice. 

“None,” Crowley grumbled. If it was possible for him to slide deeper into the cushions, he did so. Aziraphale suppressed a smile and turned instead to having another drink. 

“If you say so, my dear,” he said, gazing at Crowley, who was slowly turning more and more red as he stared pointedly at the ceiling. 

The night wore on, as nights often tend to do, until Aziraphale noticed, with a slight start, the sun coming up over the tall London buildings and streaming into the shop. 

“Dear me,” he murmured, utterly and hopelessly drunk, fumbling his way around the bottles that had collected on his desk, “Crowley, it’s-” 

Crowley had fallen asleep roughly thirty minutes earlier, face slumping onto the nearest decorative pillow, but Aziraphale, completely engrossed in his half-whispered and intoxicated self-discussion over the last works of Charles Dickens, could not have been bothered to notice, up until right then. 

“Oh,” Aziraphale said softly. He stood up on two shaky legs, before remembering that he could, in fact, sober up. He promptly did so, just enough that he could walk over to Crowley, properly, and pull off the quilt draped tastefully over the side of the couch to lay it over the dozing demon. As Aziraphale smiled at Crowley unconsciously shifting in his sleep to hold onto the blanket, he noticed with a kick in his stomach that at some point in the night, Crowley had finally - _ finally! _\- taken his sunglasses off. For the briefest of moments, Aziraphale let himself look at Crowley, let his half-drunk eyes linger on Crowley’s face, unmasked, asleep, wholly relaxed. Aziraphale took a deep and quavering breath, knowing he had much to think about, and adjusted the quilt ever so tenderly, fingers brushing against Crowley’s shoulder. Then the angel walked upstairs, with all intents to sober up completely and maybe check over those rescued books of prophecy, just once more. 

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading!!  
title & intro from queen ofc 
> 
> if you want to watch me continue to lose my mind about good omens you can find me on tumblr [@thirteenthdyke](https://thirteenthdyke.tumblr.com)!


End file.
